Dear editor,
I appreciated Rick James’ article in the letters to the editor.
I believe that he hit the nail on the head in terms of the cause of turbidity in our drinking water. This situation has caused the citizens and businesses of the Comox Valley to be inconvenienced by boiling or purchasing bottled water for almost two months. Not only is our water supply compromised, but also our fishery suffers greatly from excessive flooding and silting of the spawning beds in our local streams and rivers. The damage that has been done rests on the shoulders of the federal, provincial governments and TimberWest. It seems that the forestry regulations have been changed by both governments and that TimberWest has been allowed to cut without consideration to our water supply. What can we do now? Perhaps our MLA, Don McRae, and our MP, John Duncan, could stand up and go to bat for the taxpaying, voting citizens of the Comox Valley. It is obvious that logging practices should cease in our watershed and that intensive replanting operations should begin immediately. I am already paying taxes for water I can’t drink so I believe the responsible parties (TimberWest, provincial and federal governments) should be held accountable. They should provide funding to pay for a water filtration system that will ensure that we will be able to drink pure water in the future, as I doubt that this is the end of the turbidity problem.
Mike Sutcliffe
Comox